Friday, September 20, 2013

Judith's Birth Story

A
little before 9:00 in the morning on March 22, I was in the parking lot
on my way into the office for a massage. I felt a big cramp that
wrapped around from my lower back and thought to myself, “Huh.”
Actually, I think I said that out loud. In my head, I wondered if
today was the day.

When
I visited the bathroom in preparation of my massage (since I would
never make it a full hour without that) I found that I was bleeding
bright red. I came back out into the waiting room and called my
midwives. They agreed with me that it was probably the bloody show, but
that it didn’t mean that anything was necessarily imminent, so I should
go ahead with the massage and call them again when I started having
contractions. After the massage, I discovered that my mucus plug had
also exited the building.

I
was staying at my mom’s house because my husband, Jacob, had been out
of town until late the night before. Our first child wasn’t born until I
was 41.5 weeks along so it seemed reasonable for him to be traveling
during my 38th week right up until I was laying in bed, unable to fall
asleep because I kept problem-solving what I would do if I went into
labor at that moment. “And if she’s turned her phone off, who would I
call then? And if he tells me he can’t make it in less than an hour,
who would I call?” So, I went to stay with my mom so that I could just
go wake her up if I went into labor in the middle of the night.

After
my massage, I went back to Mom’s house and hung out with a friend and
her daughter for a play date. We have known each other for 15 years and
laughed because she and I had been chatting the night she went into
labor. During this time, contractions were coming and going in loose
waves just below the surface. I was aware of them but they weren’t
urgent. I even made us lunch, if not too well. My mom had to soak the
pan I made the grilled cheese in.

And
although I could not tell you what changed, my sense of urgency turned a
corner. I wanted to get on the road into the city NOW. So, I hustled
Erika and Erin out the door, kissed my mom and my 21-month-old and
headed toward home, where Jacob wa telecommuting. I called him to let
him know the situation (I hadn’t wanted to distract him from the
post-business trip clean-up work before this) and also texted my best
friend when I was stopped at a light. She teaches middle school in a
block schedule and sent her kids out for their bathroom break early to
call me back. The dialogue is worth recording.

Susan: Murph, I don’t have my Go Bag packed.

Rebecca:
Susan! Haven’t you been paying attention to all the Facebook statuses
and emails where I’ve mentioned that I’ve been dreaming about going
into labor earlier rather than later?

Susan: I don’t know what to tell you. I don’t have my Go Bag packed.

Rebecca: OK. So school’s out in 45 minutes. Go home, pack your Go Bag and get out here.

Susan: All right, but I have to buy a car on my way out.

Rebecca: What?!?!

Susan:
I’m supposed to pick it up tomorrow at 9:30! Don’t worry: it’s all
detailed and the paperwork is ready to go. I just have to sign for it
and drive it off the lot.

Rebecca:
Fine. But you be sure to tell them that your best friend is in labor
and that you need to be there when the baby is born.

Susan: Got it. I promise you I’ll be there around 7:00.

Rebecca: Well, I guess if this baby comes before 7, then I really didn’t need your help anyway.

Luckily,
she laughed, remembering that I credit her with getting my first baby
out vaginally because she knew exactly how to coach me.

After
notifying my two birth partners and driving for a little while, I
realized that I had begun holding my breath while contractions came on
because they were starting to hurt. So, I began counting with my
fingers on the steering wheel and checking the clock at the start of
each one. 7 minutes apart and a minute long for the remaining 30
minutes that it took to get home. This is where my last labor stalled
for almost three days without progress but also without a break. I had
to take an Ambien to sleep through the pain. But this didn't feel like
the beginning of a fugue state. This felt like a train getting started.

I
got home, settled in and announced my plan to Jacob. I wanted to pack
his Go Bag, download a contraction timing app, go for a walk before the
sun went down, fill out the admissions paperwork and something else that
I don't now remember. He was game but didn't take me literally. When I
walked into our bedroom to find that he had added "fold the laundry" to
the list, I flipped out a little, even though normally that would be an
efficient use of time since most of his Go Bag was coming out of the
dryer.

But
we went for our walk, which was briskly cold but sunny at the end of
March. Our parents called but I waved off the phone and let Jacob talk
to them. I was starting to get tunnel vision, spiritually, and didn't
need the outside distraction. When we arrived back to our building,
Jacob was still talking to my dad and I was leaning forward with my
hands against the bricks, rocking my hips from side to side to get
through a contraction. A stoner kid was sitting 20 feet away on the
other side of the wrout-iron fence, being stoned. First, he asked if I
was ok in a voice straight out of a Harold and Kumar movie. I tersely
told him I was fine and went back to my work. Then, he asked a couple
more times and the question shifted to asking for permission to sit
where he was sitting on the public sidewalk "because I'm just soaking up
the sun, man." At that point, I tore him a new asshole about his
intrusiveness and idiocy, which probably led Jacob to quickly finish the
conversation with my father, unlock the front door and usher me inside.

And
then we labored. It was around 5:30 at this point and from them until
11:00, we watched TV, ate and paused periodically for me to stand, brace
myself and rock side to side through contractions, shouting out heir
stating and ending if Jacob wasn't in the room, so he could record them
on his phone. Honestly, I don't remember much except standing at the
dining room table for contractions. Susan arrived around 8:00 to
relieve Jacob, which he probably needed because I know I had a sharpness
to me.

The
reality is that we were going through a textbook labor and I had
already transitioned into active labor, but since my first daughter's
labor veered so far from normal by taking 3 days, we forgot everything
we had studied in the class before her birth. We all thought we were
still in early labor. My sharpness came a little from my internal
despair that we had so much further to go. Even once it was time to go
to the hospital, we would have so much work to do there (I labored for
12 hours in the hospital the first time and then pushed for another 6).
Even if this baby came faster, like everyone said she would. Half of 3
days, 12 hours and 6 hours is still a shitload of time to be in as much
pain as I was in. I kept thinking about all of the birth stories I read
when the heroine had a moment of clarity in which she realize she just
needed to reach down into herself and find that extra bit of strength to
move things along and I was so depressed that I wasn't having that
epiphany. I was just enduring.

Jacob
and Susan are the real heroes of Judith's story. I was just doing what
my body pushed me to do: stand up, lean forward with my hands on the
table, rock from side to side, moan if I needed to and collapse again
when the contraction was over. They would put pressure on my lower back
to help. Susan was knitting in between contractions and shocked my
several times when she touched me. I asked/accused her of working with
unnatural fibers and snapped that she could discharge that static
electricity before she got close and she knew that already, right? (Her
patience is a huge part of why she's a hero.) The next contraction, she
shocked me again and she and Jacob both giggled nervously because it
turns out that she had sucked Jacob first but it hadn't worked to get
rid of all the static. The laughter infuriated me and I shouted that
she had to f***ing put that acrylic shit away and that she could take a
ball of wool out of my stash if she needed something to do with her
hands. There was definitely an subtext of ugly elitism in my directives.

Jacob
is a hero because he stopped letting me sit down between contractions
and began making me walk the hallways. He walked backwards and I leaned
on him as I shuffled. I negotiated breaks because I was so tired but he
never let me stop for too long. I wasn't very nice about this either,
but I think I was beginning to sound pathetic, too.

Finally,
I moved to all fours on the couch but we were stalled at contractions
every 3.5 minutes and the midwives had said not to come in until we were
3 minutes apart. Similar to the corner I had turned at my mom's house,
I began to feel an urgency to go to the hospital. This did not make me
feel more warmly toward my life and love partner who was tracking me
with his phone and telling me it wasn't time to go yet. Also, you know
how you have amazing ideas right before you fall asleep but all you can
remember in the morning is that you had an idea, not the idea itself?
This was happening to me in between contractions. I was starting to
realize that I was clenching my pelvis at the end of contractions and
that this felt inappropriate somehow but the pain would come again and
I'd forget.

So,
when Jcob left the room for something and Susan whispered
conspiratorially that if I wanted to go to the hospital, we could go
whenever I was ready, it was like hearing the unthought known. It was
time. We called the answering service and when we didn't hear back in
15 minutes, I insisted we call again. A labor and delivery nurse called
back immediately and asked to talk we me personally. I was in the
middle of a contraction, dropped an f-bomb and apologized at the
conclusion. (It's amazing how being in the presence of a woman who
sounds like a middle-aged African-American makes me forget all my
liberal beliefs about language and remember to be respectful.). She
laughed and said that it sounded like I should come in. I asked in a
worried voice about waiting until the contractions got to 3 minutes and
she told me not to worry about it.

With
that, I had a plan. We got loaded into the cars and headed out. 20
minutes later, my husband dropped me at the front door and he and Susan
went to park their cars in the lot. At my hospital, you don't go throu
the ER but to another door that is unmanned except for a buzzer. As I
waited in the darkened foyer for an elevator, a contraction started just
as the doors opened and a custodian wheeled his cart out. Poor guy. I
shrugged off his offer of help much more kindly than I did the
stoner's, though.

No
one came to meet me at the door to the delivery ward so I buzzed again
and walked an interminable distance down a hall alone, stopping twice
for contractions and recorded on Jacob's phone, which I had been
clutching since we left the house. I had another as I checked in at the
nurse's station. They put us straight into a room, bypassing triage.
It seemed quiet on the floor, in general. However, the midwife on call
was in another room assisting a delivery, so it was just the three of us
settling in with the nurse that I had talked with on the phone. Once I
had changed into my own nightgown, she asked if I felt the need to push
and I told her I didn't know what that felt like since I had a major
epidural the first time. Her description of the the biggest, most
painful bowel movement of my life didn't resonate, so I said no. They
wanted me up on the bed to do a 20 minute fetal monitoring as part of
the routine check-in and as she set up the equipment and tried to get
the straps around me, Jacob was setting up my iPad and the speakers
according to me instructions. He asked how to set it on shuffle during
one of my contractions and I growled that Apple was famous for intuitive
user experience, couldn't he figure that out himself? Like I said, I
just did what my basest instincts led me to do. Jacob and Susan
conscientiously chose grace and forgiveness. They are the heroes. He
also complained that I wanted the music too loud and couldn't he turns
it down, which tarnishes his armor a little, but I'm willing to let that
slide upon reflection.

The
was trying to find the baby's heartbeat up near my belly button and
getting nothing but silence. It took me a little while to register that
this should worry me so I asked Susan if I should be worried. The
nurse answered with reassurance. It turns out that the heartbeat was
all the way down by my mons and she had to painfully hold the monitor
there amidst my bucking and rolling with the pain, which seemed to be
slamming me. I was clutching the rails of the bed, pushing my forehead
into the grooves of the built-in TV speakers. They wanted me to roll
over to help them get a better angle on the monitoring and that was
brutal but I made it and clutched the other side like someone who can't
swim clutching the other side of a short flailing across the kiddie
pool. At this point, the nurse did a manual exam and things escalated
quickly at that point. I guess that baby was crowning and Jacob and
Susan could see her head. No one told me this, or I didn't hear them,
and I was still profoundly sad because I knew we still had a lot of work
ahead of us because we had only just gotten to the hospital. Susan
worked really hard at this point to pull me out of the pit of despair by
saying things like, "This is happening now. Look at how quickly they
are setting out the instruments." In my first delivery, I had pleaded
with Susan to tell me how much longer I would have to push, knowing that
she didn't know but needed an answer anyway. We laugh remembering that
when she said, "Seven more pushes," I shouted dramatically, "You lie!"

The
only part of that story I remembered in my pain, with my eyes closed,
was the lying. So, even when she said, "Listen! Do you hear them
shouting down the hallway for the midwife? This baby is coming now," I
didn't believe her. I was sure we had hours of pain ahead of us.

Finally,
the urge to push liberated my clutchy pelvis and my water broke. On
the next contraction, I yelled, "I'm either pooping or pushing!" In a
crescendo and they all ran to my side. I still didn't quite believe as
Susan told me she could see the baby's ear, but it did let some light
begin to shine on my terrified soul and when she told me she could see
the baby's face after the next push tore out of me, I asked in a tiny
voice, "It's face?" This confirmed my realization that my vagina had
created a visual image of a literal partial ring of fire behind my
eyelids that time and I was finally able to take on some agency in this
whole birth experience and agreed to actually push one more time to
get the rest of the baby out.

And there she was.

My little Judith.

Less
than a half hour after we had arrived, they were putting my baby on my
chest and I was looking into my husband's eyes and laughing in
bewilderment. "It's still Friday," I said. It had been 11:27 pm to be
exact. I got to push aside the umbilical cord and see that it was a
girl. Jacob hadn't gotten to catch her like he had her sister but this
time he cut the cord once it was done pulsing and he managed not to
accidentally nick her foot in the process. I delivered the placenta in
all of this with one more somewhat painful push, which was also a novel
experience for me. And then they left us alone.

It
was probably only a couple of minutes but they had moved Esther to the
warming table at this point in her delivery so I was stunned to just be
sitting in my bed, holding my daughter and crying with my husband and
best friend a little. Jacob asked me if her name was Judith and I
agreed, asking in return if her middle name was Ruby, after my
great-grandmother. I nuzzled her head and played with the word
amniotical? ammoniacal? to describe the perfect, fecund smell of her.

They
came in eventually to do the things they do with new babies. She was 7
pounds and 3 ounces and had already successfully latched on both sides
by that time. I assume everyone else held her before they gave her back
to me and the room emptied out again except for the four of us. I have
such a sense of peace about that time while we were waiting to be
transferred to a recovery room. My favorite music was playing on
shuffle, my favorite people were with me, my baby was a sweet, warm
weight in my chest and I had accomplished something amazing almost as a
surprise. How awe-inspiring to have it proved that I was capable on
that kind of work.

Again,
it contrasted so starkly to the denouement of Esther's birth in the
middle of the afternoon, with the sunlight streaming in and most of my
family in the waiting room, ready to storm the castle with cheer and
congratulations as soon as anyone would let them. This time was
contentment and gently radiating love and music. Both perfect for their
respective experiences.

1 comment:

Hello, Princess Max! Mike Morrell asked me to contact you because he really appreciates your blog and thinks you'd be an excellent candidate for his Speakeasy Blogger Network. Do you like to review off-the-beaten path faith, spirituality, and culture books? Speakeasy puts interesting books in your hands at no charge to you. You only get books when you request them, and it's free to join. Sign up here, if you'd like: http://thespeakeasy.info

About Me

The opinions expressed on this blog are not representative of the opinions of the organization that employs me. Additionally, it should be noted that my intent in writing this blog is to tell the stories of my personal experience so that other people can have a sense that they are not alone out there if they have similar experiences. If my stories upset you in any way, I hope you will feel safe enough to email me directly so that we can work through a loving reconciliation.